Free will is the new god.

Sam Harris has been discussing the idea of (or lack thereof) free will. He is of the mindset that there is no free will. Many scientists are in agreement, but at the same time, there is still plenty of arguing. In fact, Sam Harris has had to add some installments to his initial post on the subject. This age old debate has two sides. On the free will side (broadly), individuals argue that since we make decisions every day, all day, we must have free will. I am typing this out as I please therefore I’m exercising my free will. On the determinist side (again broadly), individuals argue that my actions are determined by automatic processes already in motion. I am typing this because of some biological or environmental push-pull. These descriptions are vague and simplistic, but the arguments go far beyond the word limit provided here. The scientific evidence on this debate is mixed, but seems weighted in favor of determinism, or lack of free will. This is true for social psychology (see Bargh, 2000) and neuroscience (Tancredi, 2007).

Even if it can be argued that the scientific evidence is not in favor of determinism, the amount of research on automaticity and the findings of brain activation prior to behavior should leave a large population of people believing in determinism. This, however, is not the case. The fact that Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne (with largely science-minded and atheist followings) have had to write numerous blog posts to continue arguing against free will, speaks to prevalence of the belief in free will. Indeed, Sarkissian and colleagues (2010) have recently found that belief in free will is quite universal (cross-culturally so) and that morality and determinism are at odds.

“‘There is no evidence for free will’? ”
I did not indicate that there wasn’t. That is a quote from Jerry Coyne. However, I have not found any “convincing” evidence myself.

While I’m familiar with a LOT of Baumeister’s work, I have not read that one, so I can’t speak to it directly. I will read it shortly though. Unfortunately, I missed when Bargh introduced him, I was at a different symposium, so I can’t speak to what he said. I’m guessing it was nuanced, depending on the framing of the paper you indicate and what other people have told me.

I was unable to get access to the Baumeister paper you linked. What I gleaned from the abstract is that he and his authors assert that all human behavior is the function of an interaction of conscious and unconscious processes. Perhaps. However, even given this assumption, if all behavior has unconscious (determined?) elements, then it cannot be “free” will.

The conception of free will is logically incoherent. And such logical incoherency stems a much farther reach that physicalism. Free will is logically impossible in both a deterministic universe or an indeterministic universe. It is also logically impossible for any nonphysical systems postulated. The causal/acausal dichotomy logically stems to any system that has events.